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Medical Marijuana and the Physician/Pharmacologists of the U.S. Supreme Court

Dr. Phillip Leveque Salem-News.com

Phillip Leveque has spent his life as a Combat Infantryman, Pharmacologist, Toxicologist and Physician.

Scene from Boston LegalCourtesy: danielroebuck.com

(MOLALLA, Ore.) - Those of you who read my articles on the Web know that almost nothing surprises me anymore. I said almost nothing!

Last week I saw the final TV show of Boston Legal which I thoroughly enjoy. In this show Alan Shore was pleading before the U.S. Supreme Court to get a new drug released for Denny Crane to treat his Alzheimers disease.

The Boston Legal episode is based around the Supreme Court's 2005 6-3 decisiom that the Bush administration can block the cultivation of medical marijuana for personal use, because of what the justices saw as "broader social and financial implications". (see: Supreme Court allows prosecution of medical marijuana)

In the show last week, the opposing attorney was against the release of the new drug because it hadn’t gone through the FDA clinical testing. Marijuana was brought up as a comparison. One of the judges said that this was a poor comparison because “there are many drugs far better than cannabis/marijuana”. I nearly fell out of my chair.

If a Supreme Court Justice hasn’t used or doesn’t know several people who have smoked MJ he must have been brought up in a monastery. That’s not a good example. I had two Catholic Priests as MJ patients. I think those two learned about MJ and used it in Vietnam as soldiers.

I can’t figure a Supreme Court Justice being so misinformed but maybe part of their training was to watch “REEFER MADNESS” which was a very bad movie played by very bad actors.

If I may, I’d like to inform the Justice or Justices and this comes from not only my 4000 plus patients but from the probable 400 thousand legal users of MJ. These patients have a variety of diseases from serious to very serious to lethal. For whatever their disease is they not only say that MJ is better or more effective than ANY of the hundreds of LEGAL DRUGS they have been given as if they were “Lab Rats”.

I will say there are a few exceptions. For extreme pain there are Dilaudid, Oxycontin and Heroin itself (available in England).

I don’t care Mr. Justice which or any drug you can mention, cannabis/marijuana is better. Dilaudid etc are extremely addicting – cannabis has very low addicting potential and has never killed anyone. You cannot name any other drug as safe to use as cannabis.

I might add that even the U.S. Govt. estimates that at least 50 million have used cannabis with not one death or any kind of serious harm. Mr. Justice, where did you get such lousy misinformation. I’m almost afraid to ask – wherever, it is completely wrong. Judge Fracis Young, a judge for the DEA says “Cannabis is the safest drug ever found by man”.

More information on the history of Dr. Leveque can be found in his book, General Patton's Dogface Soldier of WWII about his own experiences "from a foxhole".Order the book by mail by following this link: Dogface Soldier

If you are a World War II history buff, you don't want to miss it.

Watch for more streaming video question and answer segments about medical marijuana with Bonnie King and Dr. Phil Leveque.

I heard on the radio last night that the FDA doesn't test whether a drug is better than existing ones on the market, it just tests whether it meets the manufacturer's claims and it's within specified levels of safety.
So why does EVERY prohibitionist say "there's better drugs out there"??? That isn't what the FDA tests!
If the FDA doesn't test other drugs to see if they're better than everything else then why should marijuana be forced to meet this standard?
Marijuana is a GREAT drug at some things, and as safe as hell! That'd be enough to allow other drugs to pass the FDA's testing, so why isn't enough to allow marijuana to pass???
Send marijuana back to the FDA and get them to test it right this time!